


HU&SS

by yaoi_yaoieverywhere



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Background Relationships, Crew as Family, Fluff and Crack, Kid Fic, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Or something like that but mentally, or as close as possible
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 10:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaoi_yaoieverywhere/pseuds/yaoi_yaoieverywhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, what, another mentally-sent-back-in-time fic? Pssht.</p><p>At least all of the main Strawhat Crew (and Allies) were sent back knowingly. Plus a few other key players such as Ace, Sabo, and Vivi. That might rattle things a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HU&SS

**Author's Note:**

> As this is my seriously weird canon-is-maybe-half-done-but-I-pretend-otherwise OP fic, I feel justified in warning people this is going to be so self indulgent. Lovely self indulgent fluff and impossibilities. That's why there's all the tags though it may take a while to insert everyone. Expect time skips, way-too-easily-relearned Haki, and messing with what rules apply to Devil Fruit.
> 
> This is just something fun to do between my more serious fics. Don't worry too much.

It's not like Luffy wakes up one conveniently timed morning and has a flood of memories overtake his child brain in the sanctity of dawn and warm sheets. That would be entirely too predictable and Luffy was the second Pirate King. Wouldn't make much sense to be predictable in such a way, now would it?

The two decades or so he'd lived after Sabo and Ace dragged him out of crocodile guts. The memory came to him at the exact moment he fell back into it. Made his arm stretch in his brother's grasp as they tried to drag him out.

They were brothers, right?

After helping to pushing himself out of the nasty smelling viscera, Luffy began a very short staring contest with Ace and Sabo. It was awkward, trying to focus one eye on Sabo and the other on Ace.

Ace let out a shuddering breath, and Sabo swallowed a deep breath. Luffy grinned wide with a familiar giggle.

Ah, the pitched voice would take some getting used to. Puberty, for all that it was ruthless, had at least give Luffy his proper captain voice.

"What-" Ace started, small hands drawing aimless patterns on his intact though much smaller abdomen. The phantom feeling of not being all there as something even hotter than fire ate through him...

"Luffy, what did you do?" Sabo interrupted before Ace could finish. His tone was almost resigned if not for the curiosity sparked in his eyes. A hand dragged over his face, fascinated with the smooth skin and round cheeks. His hands slid through barely there hair.

"I dunno! My nakama had just helped me save someone who was the Wash-Wash fruit and he asked me something. He didn't even listen before going 'Oh, ok.' and now we're here!"

"Are you sure it was called the Wash-Wash fruit?" The rhetorical question had Luffy laughing in answer.

"Didn't I just die?" Ace wondered aloud, having barely heard their conversation. He flinched when Luffy's face slackened and Sabo averted his gaze. "Aren't you dead too, Sabo?"

Swallowing a vile mix of guilt and denial, Sabo swallowed. Bumping shoulders with Ace he tried to find the words. It shouldn't be this hard after all he'd done.

"This is the afterlife, isn't it." Ace let his head fall into his left hand, eyes wide with shock as the other hand still cradled his middle. "My afterlife is living as a kid with Luffy and Sabo again. It's... Not as bad as I expected, but weirder." Recalling how he had come into awareness halfway through pulling Luffy out of a croc's belly, he grimaced. "A lot weirder."

"You're not dead." Not anymore, Sabo thought.

"You've missed a lot, Ace." Eyes drawn to Luffy, Sabo nodded. "It's been years."

Ace finally drew his hands away from the phantom hole and his face to draw his brothers close.

"Years," he whispered, sounding more lost than Sabo had ever heard. Sabo felt tears coming but he knew he had to say something before he let himself cry.

"I forgot." There wasn't accusation in Ace's eyes, but Sabo still felt his breath catch at the hurt. He turned away. These were things you weren't supposed to forget. It wasn't Sabo's fault, and yet- "Dragon took me in and I didn't remember anything until the papers after Marineford. I couldn't- You know I would have, Ace, but-" A fist met the back of his head and cut him off. Rubbing the back of his head, Sabo looked at Ace again and stared.

"I don't care about that, idiot!" Tears were streaming down Ace and Luffy's faces though it was only Ace talking.

"But I couldn't save you!" Now Sabo was crying too, eyes boiling hot with tears in a way he hadn't felt since he'd eaten Ace's Devil Fruit. The Mera Mera no Mi. "I would have done anything to have remembered in time, I'd have taken your place if I could-"

"Don't say that!" Ace hissed, fist raised even as the tears kept falling. "I'm glad you didn't die! Luffy needed you alive, dammit I need you alive! You deserve to live free! You're the smart one-"

"Neither of you can die this time." Luffy interrupted, voice almost quiet. Sabo and Ace felt the blood drain out of their faces. It almost felt like he was using Conquerors' Haki, but it wouldn't have affected his brothers nearly so well. "You're my brothers."

Sabo felt at a loss. Long ago he would have agreed with Luffy. Now he hesitated, not out of logic, but of the single minded belief that he wouldn't let Luffy or Ace die before him.

"You can't die either," Ace mumbled, tears drying on his face as he rested his cheek on top of Luffy's head. "Got it?"

"Well duh," Luffy huffed, looking at Sabo expectantly.

"It's a promise then."

It was only once they were safely back in the treehouse and stuffing their faces full of crocodile meat that they thought about what they were going to do with their second chance.

"My nakama are back too, so we'll find each other soon." Luffy said as he chewed, seemingly uncaring of how most people would be unable to decipher anything he said.

"I'd be concerned about who else you brought back. Ace wasn't around, and I certainly wasn't anywhere nearby." Sabo said casually before shoving what looked to be most of the tail meat into his mouth effortlessly, having avoided his brother's grabby hands long enough to say that.

"Who do you think you brought back?" Ace asked curiously. He was gnawing on what looked to be a piece of spine, eyeing the legs curiously.

"My Nakama!" Luffy said cheerfully.

"Luffy..." Sabo hesitated, yanking the thigh meat out of Ace's sights. "That's not helpful. Which of your Nakama? Us and your crew, certainly, but who else?"

"Hmm. Probably Torao, because he's cool. Maybe some of his crew, but definitely the Polar Bear. Oh, and Vivi! It was nice seeing her again. Nami was gonna marry her." Luffy spat out a bone that looked almost as big as his head.

"Polar Bear?" Ace questioned, eyebrows raising. It was ever more comical with the bone dangling from his teeth.

"Really he's a Mink. The type found in the New World? His name is Bepo," Sabo muttered around the thigh stuffed in his mouth.

"Ah." Ace knew about those at least. "Well as much as I missed both of you, I miss being part Oyaji's crew too."

"Yeah, and I should probably tell Dragon everything. I've memorized a lot that could be useful. But... We're kids." Wrinkling his nose, Sabo sat back and belched contentedly. "Dragon won't want me to join without being assumed dead at this age so I doubt Whitebeard would be too happy either."

"Yeah, but we're not really kids." Ace nodded to himself.

"If they don't want you, you can always join my crew!" Luffy cheered, ignoring the incredulous looks his brothers shot him.

"Maybe if we had the Mera Mera no Mi..." Tapping an odd rhythm against the floorboards, Ace squinted. "I can fight well, but my Haki needs a lot of work. Never really needed it."

"Well I want my Seastone Pipe back. And... Maybe we can share the Mera Mera? I've gotten used to being fire."

"You ate the Mera Mera?" Ace startled, swiveling his head to stare at Sabo. "I thought you liked swimming!"

"I mostly wanted to swim in case Luffy went overboard. With his crew I didn't have to worry so much as when it was just us." Beyond the need to have part of Ace, anyway. "Can two people even eat the same fruit?"

"Dunno. We can always try! But I didn't find it until like, seven years from now."

"With Luffy's luck you'll find it in the week."

"In East Blue?"

Sabo just reached over and grabbed one of Luffy's arms, tugging it gently until it stretched. Luffy didn't even growl at him.

"Ah. Point taken."

"Can we go beat Bluejam up?" Luffy wondered abruptly. Ace and Sabo looked at each other consideringly.

"We should see what skills stuck before we do. If I remember, he started coming after us not too long after we sold this crocodile skin... Which means that's when my dad hired him." After a pause, Sabo sighed. "I kind of don't want to fake my death again."

"You're a lot better at disguises now than you were before!" Luffy enthused as he flopped on the floor, belly round as an overstuffed puppy. "And that means Dragon's around, right? Since he's saving the people in the Grey Terminal."

"Well then we'd better hope our skills aren't too bad and the Mera Mera no Mi shows up quick."

They went into town the next day, Sabo's hair almost as red as Shanks' and top hat reluctantly left behind. Luffy almost demanded to know who he was and what he'd done with Sabo.

As it would happen, the Mera Mera no Mi happily rolled out of a strange woman's bag when they went into town. Sabo made a small noise. Disbelief mixed with 'of course this happened'.

Ace decided to distract the woman by bumping into her and shutting the suitcase before she could notice, Sabo grabbed the fruit before anyone could spot him, and Luffy managed to hide it... Somewhere. Seeing as it's gone up his shirt, he'd probably somehow made a hollow to fit it in.

They made it out of town at record breaking speed, Luffy holding his middle with both arms.

"I can't believe that just happened," Ace gasped between delighted laughter when they finally collapsed in the treehouse.

"Give it here, Luffy." Luffy reached under his shirt and suddenly there was a round imprint in his shirt before the fruit tumbled into his lap. Tossing it to Sabo, Luffy giggled too.

"Maybe we should eat this somewhere less... burnable." Ace muttered, pushing himself into a sitting position. "I kept sneezing fire the first time around and experience or no, I don't want to burn the forest down."

"What if we eat it in front of the bandits?" Sabo's eyes glittered with mischief and Luffy gasped in delight.

"Won't they tell the geezer?" Ace wondered, but his eyes gave away how much the idea delighted him. 

"It'll make him worry less when we disappear if Dadan tells him we've got Logia powers," Sabo brushed off, eyeing the orange fruit again. "This is gonna taste so disgusting."

"Like charcoal, gasoline, and burned rubber," Ace agreed. "Let's get to it. Remember Luffy- Dadan can't know we know what this is exactly until Sabo and me eat it. Or at least, what powers it'll give us."

The bandits were all at home when the three terrors burst in. The noise level only increased, Dadan turning to look at them with slowly forming horror as they brandished the devil fruit.

"Look what we found! Luffy said it's super rare, so Sabo and I are gonna eat it! I bet it tastes better than whatever you guys found~"

"Oh no you don't!" Dadan roared, but it was too late. Ace had lowered the fruit already, biting into it at the exact same time as Sabo. It really did taste like all those awful things he'd remembered, and more he couldn't identify.

"Yuck," Sabo said after swallowing reluctantly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What is it?"

"You little idiots," Dadan growled, lifting the three boys up by the collar of their shirts. The fruit rolled to the floor and faded to ash. "Do you know what you've done?"

"Dunno, don't care," Ace said brashly, sticking his tongue out. "I'm not dead so it can't be that bad." He carefully left out that it really had tasted just as awful as the first time around.

"Which one of you got the power?" Dadan shook them lightly even as she took them to their room.

"Power?" Sabo said with saccharine charm.

"Don't pretend you don't know what that is! A devil fruit changes someone forever, like Luffy!"

"I don't-" Sabo made a face, and then sneezed a small burst of orange fire. Ace quickly followed suit. Luffy sneezed too, loud but otherwise normal. Dadan stared at them with growing horror.

"This is impossible!"

"Ne, Dadan, it's just improbable." Sabo almost chirped, rubbing his warming hands together. "Anyway, maybe we shouldn't be inside. I mean... Fire in a house?" Dadan seemed to ignore that.

"I can't take this! Ace was already too much, and then he find you in the Junkyard! Then Garp brings another brat that was supposed to be safe in the village who managed to find a Devil Fruit, and then both of you eat one that makes you fire! When Garp gets back, I'm making him take all three of you!" With that, Dadan dropped them on a futon and left, door slamming behind her. "Stay here!"

"Well, that went as well as it could." Sabo flopped down, staring at the ceiling quizzically. "You okay, Luffy?"

"Mhm! But I'm hungry..."

"So'm I." Ace admitted, all three stomachs growling in agreement. "We forgot to get Ramen before we came."

"We'll get something big after breakfast tomorrow. I'm thinking a Tiger?"

"Mmhm, Tiger..."

"Then we can spar!" Luffy cheered, already squirming under the blankets. "I'm gonna beat you guys this time!"

"You can try," Ace muttered, a soft kick to the Luffy shaped lump under the blankets.

"And then... I'm going to find Dragon." Sabo breathed, eyes faraway. "I wonder if he'll believe me."

"Of course he will." Twining his arms around Ace and Sabo, Luffy grinned wide. "He's your captain!"

"Whitebeard's seen some of the strangest things of any many, but he never mentioned anything like this." Curling on his side, Ace let Luffy's arm drag him closer. "...I know them, but they don't know me. Won't they see me as a burden now, even if they accept me again?"

"Nakama aren't burdens." Luffy's childish voice seemed to hold all the truth in the world in those three words. Ace and Sabo quieted, considering those words long into the night before they fell asleep. Their snores had an odd harmony.


End file.
